Lily Hoang - Unfinished - stories finished by Lily Hoang

It’s a keepsake. I don’t let anyone else see it. It’s hidden somewhere. That way, it’s both safe from harm and dust.

Also: I was supposed to have been the baby everyone else wanted. I chose a bear no one else cared for. That’s what made it special to me.

Following this logic through to the end, that must mean that Blanche only cared for me because everyone else wanted me.

To make her lesson truly relevant, I ought to have chosen the most popular style of bear, the bestseller.

But I suppose her lesson was about choosing wisely, not necessarily desire.

Yesterday, as Blanche and I drove into Iowa, I promised her it would be a short trip, that we were only here for some quick detective work. Yesterday, upon entering Iowa, I felt nothing akin to home. Now, a slight 24-hours later, there’s comfort in all this corn. People here amble. There’s nothing quick about this state.

I look back at Blanche. She’s sleeping, of course. I negotiate with her: a new toy and a different type of cuisine or restaurant of her choice to sample for every day we stay in Iowa. The new toy will be purchased here. The food, obviously, once we get home. Blanche is an adventurous eater, and she’s not particularly keen on the selection she’s seen here so far.

When Blanche finally wakes up, I take her into a diner for lunch. It’s an unimpressive menu.

There, I spread out a map, and even though I know this will lead me nowhere, and especially nowhere closer to my real mother, I plot out the eight addresses the administrative assistant gave me. Then, I call into my office, telling them I’ve been detained here in Iowa: a family emergency, which of course, they understand. I tell them I’ll be back next week.

I tell Blanche: This is a start to a whole new adventure.

But she just looks blankly at the map. It looks more like a grid than a map, except for the eight black stars that disrupt Iowa’s clean lines and controlled order.

I.

Sometimes, he pins a sign to his back: For Sale. $30 obo.

Not surprisingly, people come up to him and offer him money.

They ask what he’s willing to do if they buy him.

They ask if he went to college, as if that would make any difference.

But he still answers: Yes. Notre Dame. Class of 2006.

Then, they offer him more money.

He clarifies that the price is per hour, and they don’t get any discount if they buy in bulk.

Surprisingly, it’s mostly men who want to buy him. He’s really not a bad looking guy. He thought the sign would be a sure-fire way to get laid.

People buy him to do their taxes, clean gutters, baby-sit.

II.

She only moves an inch, and they stuff some dollars down her shirt.

She says: Try me. Watch me blink my eyes and you can call it kicking. You can call me a crazy bitch, just like that.

III.

There goes the Dollar Sock Man and his wheelie cart down Western Ave. He’s been there since 1991. He holds a sign: One sock. One dollar. And he means it, but no one buys him.

This is the land of unshaven, unruly beards. This is the land where unshaven, unruly beards belong to the men who rule the land. And although their beards are so very long, extending — dragging — along the dirt, these men are not vicious.

At times, the men are unorthodox, they are illogical, they act more out of intuition than knowledge or rationality. So this is where all the computations and expectations prove themselves wrong.

Men, holed up together, are not savages. Nor will they on their own volition create empires.

When decisions need to be made — which man will receive pleasure from which prisoner, where the babies will work, who gets how much of the earnings, which child to eat, etc. — it is not like Ancient Greece. The men do not congregate in halls or squares to discuss. They do not ration their way into equality, or even anything close to equality.

But this is not Ancient Rome either. There are no gladiating wars against beasts of various sizes.

But this is not Middle Ages either. There is no sparring or jousting, no saving of damsels in distress.

But this is not Moaist China. There is no dictator.

But this is not United States. There is no guise of democracy.

But this is not Sweden or Russia. There is no Socialism.

This land of unshaven, unruly beards is unlike any other land. It is unlike any other time. Here, the men drink milk from each other. They drink off each other and live off each other. Like children, like babies, they suckle and they gurgle and they spittle and then they reproduce more of the same.

These men are something like vampires, only they are much better. They are improved. They don’t drink blood to survive: they simply suckle. They don’t hide: they have their own land. They don’t worry about extinction: because they drink only milk from each other’s teats, by the time it is all digested, they shit out babies. One a week.

Sometimes, they are malformed. Sometimes, they emerge unable to speak. Sometimes, the shit will not wash away. These are the ones they eat.

But only to ensure the strength of their teeth.

But sometimes simply because they feel like it.

It is, after all, their child. They can do with it what they want, if only because they know another will be born with the next bowel movement.

At first, it seemed unnatural. Then, they got used to it. Now, they wonder what women complain about and what takes them so long to grow a baby. But they don’t often think about it, if only because their memory of women is several generations removed. They are more mythical than vampires to these men of the land of unshaven, unruly beards.

Although there is no government in the land of unshaven, unruly beards, there is no war. There is no fighting. Although there are no town meetings, decisions are made and respected. Although it is not logic moving action, there is order.

These men and their unshaven, unruly beards, they live baking in the sun, unashamed.

The blood of Jesus is spoken here. Look up: up is liquid amber silhouetted in sunlight; up is a monkey ball turning sweet green to brown, hanging like an ornament set to go on holiday, to let go. Let go.

Where is the blood of Jesus?

She cannot speak blood.

But here, on a backstreet surrounded by boarded doors and windows, the very language of the blood of Jesus. Here, the language of blood trickles out of illiterate mouths, mouths filled with double negatives and improper prepositions, split infinitives and bilingual tongues. Blood is poor, abandoned, downcast eyes. Its language is can be no better.

When she goes to church, she cannot take the blood of Jesus into her mouth, not when she knows what lives there. But she cannot let the others know the devil lives inside her.

She does not pretend to take the blood of Jesus into her mouth.

She sees others step up to the floor; their mouths are jibber-jabber. They call it the language of the devil. She watches the devil be vanquished.

When they speak again, their voices are Cool-aid: sugary, powdery, artificial. When they speak again, her tongue swells for more water. When they speak again, she is thirsty. She sucks on her front teeth.

They do not speak the language of the devil.

The devil has no language. The devil is silence.

Outside, the church is unassuming. Outside is technicolor.

She is a woman without a name. Once, she remembers she had a name. It has been a long time since she has heard it, used it, thought of it as her own.